Macbook Pro Gpu for photo editing

Would like to hear from users of 2014 Retina Macbook Pro regarding the integrated Iris Pro gpu vs discrete gpu Iris pro/750M. How do they perform in Lightroom 5 or Lightroom 6 and photoshop?


I have read that sometimes the 750m can throttle and get hot.

In addition, is 256 gb ssd ok with the addition of external hard drive or is 512 gb ssd necessary.

Neither Photoshop or Lightroom make particularly good use of the GPU, and in the case of LR6/CC it can have a negative impact on performance, on higher end systems your often better off disabling it.

The HD5xxx built into the Intel processor is more than capable of meeting the current limited GPU demands of Photoshop, and is quite capable of even mid level gaming (e.g League of Legends).

I used to run a workstation that just used the Intel HD4000 integrated graphics to drive two monitors for Photoshop work, and never had an issue.

However, the 750m would be better for future proofing, and maybe leveraged if ever you do any video work.
OS-X and Apple have been making good use of the GPU for general computing tasks as well, usually only with Apple software. Here while the HD5xxxx would be sufficient, the 750m will perform better.

If budget is a major concern, then the Intel HD only system will be ok, but if your buying a Mac, then budget should be last on your mind, and the 750m equipped model will have some performance advantages.

Moppie wrote in post #17564950
Neither Photoshop or Lightroom make particularly good use of the GPU, and in the case of LR6/CC it can have a negative impact on performance, on higher end systems your often better off disabling it.

The HD5xxx built into the Intel processor is more than capable of meeting the current limited GPU demands of Photoshop, and is quite capable of even mid level gaming (e.g League of Legends).

I used to run a workstation that just used the Intel HD4000 integrated graphics to drive two monitors for Photoshop work, and never had an issue.

However, the 750m would be better for future proofing, and maybe leveraged if ever you do any video work.
OS-X and Apple have been making good use of the GPU for general computing tasks as well, usually only with Apple software. Here while the HD5xxxx would be sufficient, the 750m will perform better.

If budget is a major concern, then the Intel HD only system will be ok, but if your buying a Mac, then budget should be last on your mind, and the 750m equipped model will have some performance advantages.

Hello mate.
I am bit lost in your answer tbh. So just to clarify my understanding. If we look at it from photoshop/LR perspective (current versions) are you saying that iris pro is better in this regard than dedicated gpu?
Or my second question if the answer to my first will be "No" - is iris pro graphics good enough for photo editting (Lr, PS, Nik).
Many thanks for your help!

There is no yes or no answer, far to many variables and unknowns, many of them obscured by Apple's own approach to marketing and product naming.

Iris Pro refers to a series of GPU's that are a subset of a GPU's made by Intel called Intel HD. They are part of the CPU, and while some are better than others, all of them are capable of meeting the limited needs of Photoshop and Lightroom.
There would be no benefit in having the faster 750m GPU with the current versions of Photoshop and Lightroom. This may, or may not change in the future, only Adobe knows.

How useful any GPU is for LR depends on the rest of the system. There are lots of different 2014 Macbook Pro configurations and you can only really find out how useful the GPU acceleration in LR is by trying it.

Apple have a number of applications that make use of the GPU, sometimes they make a big deal out of it, and sometimes they don't, and no one really knows what spec GPU they need (except Apple). So you may, or may not see some benefit in some applications from having the faster Nvidia 750M GPU.

Essentially it doesn't matter which one you get, except that Apple offered different CPU and Ram configurations with different GPU options. In which case it may matter, as the one with the 750m maybe the better computer with a faster CPU and more RAM.

thank you mate!
I have just pulled the trigger on Macbook Pro 15", i7 2.2GHz, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, Intel Iris Pro.
My rather old (7 year old) desktop was really struggling in Nik, where whenever I tried to pull the slider to see the effect it took tens of seconds until I saw the change being applied however in such a long time I was not able to distinguish before&after.
So this was one of my first tests of my new setup and changes applied in Nik are seen instantly. That is all I needed and I know some might argue I could get the same result on any new system no matter Win or OS X based but I just wanted to experience something different after so many years on Windows where always something stops working. Truly excited to see how it will look like in Mac world.
In any case, thank you for your response - I think you kind of nailed it as it is one big alchemy .